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Thursday, 22 December 2011

December 22nd in Queer History

Born this day

Myron Brinig(1896 – 1991) US

Jewish-American author who wrote twenty-one novels from 1929 to 1958. Brinig's novels often dealt with homosexuality. According to the Gay & Lesbian Literary Heritage, Brinig was the "first American Jewish novelist to write in any significant way about the gay experience."

Gustaf Grundgens(1899 – 1963) German

One of Germany's most famous and influential actors of the 20th century, intendant and artistic director of theatres in Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg. His career continued undisturbed through the years of the Nazi regime, but the extent to which this can be considered as deliberate collaboration with the Nazis was hotly disputed. In 1934 he became intendant of the Prussian State Theatre; though constant attacks on his sexual orientation made him ask the Prussian Minister President Hermann Göring for his discharge after the Night of the Long Knives. Göring rejected the request and instead appointed him a member of the Prussian state council to ensure his immunity. Posthumously, Gründgens was the subject of a novel entitled "Mephisto" by his former brother-in-law Klaus Mann, who had died in 1949.

Marc Allegret(1900 – 1973) French

Screenwriter and film director. Allégret became André Gide's lover when he was fifteen and Gide was forty-seven. Later, Marc was to fall briefly under the spell of Cocteau

Martin Sherman(1938 –) US

Dramatist and screenwriter, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Bent (1979), which explores the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust.

David Parks(1943 – ) US

Democrat member of the Nevada Senate, who was the first openly gay member of the Nevada Legislature.

Frank Israel(1945 – 1996) US

Los Angeles architect, who designed a series of residences, remodels and office buildings, mainly for entertainment industry clients, that exemplify the contemporary West Coast style.

Kuwasi Balagoon(1946 - 1986 ) US

Bisexual Black Panther, a member of the Black Liberation Army, a New Afrikan anarchist, and a defendant in the Panther 21 case in the late sixties.

Maggie McIntosh(1947 – ) US

Maryland politician, the Chairman of the Environmental Matters Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates. Delegate McIntosh is the first woman to be appointed majority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates and the first openly gay person in the Maryland General Assembly

Nick Enright (1950 – 2003) Australian

Playwright / Author

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1996 - 1988), USGraffiti artist whose painting became a major force in revitalizing American art in the late 20th century.

Michael Williams [Sister Roma] (1962 – ) US

drag queen and art director of gay pornography. She is a twenty-year member of San Francisco's Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Inc.

Martina Voss-Tecklenburg(1967 – , German.

Retired football midfielder and lately was head coach for women's football club FCR 2001 Duisburg in Germany's top flight, the Fußball-Bundesliga.

Vicky Galindo (1983 – ) US

Athlete on the USA Softball Women's National Team

Died this day

Wallace Thurman(1902 - 1934 ) US

Novelist during the Harlem Renaissance. He is best known for his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, which explores discrimination among black people based on skin color.

Ma Rainey(1886 - 1939 ) US

One of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record.She was billed as The Mother of the Blues.

Tucker Smith (1936 - 1988 ) US

Actor/dancer/singer best known for his role as Ice in the movie musical West Side Story.

George Stambolian(1938 - 1991 ) US

Educator, writer, and editor of Armenian descent, who was a key figure in the early gay literary movement that came out of New York during the 1960s and 1970s. He was best known as the editor of the Men on Men anthologies of gay fiction.

Lance Loud (1951 - 2001 ) US

Magazine columnist and new wave rock-n-roll performer, Loud is best known for his 1973 appearance in An American Family, a pioneer reality television series that featured his coming out, leading to his status as an icon in the gay community.

Sodomy in history, December 22 nd

1853 — The Oregon Territory enacts its own sodomy law. The penalty is set at 1-5 years.

1952 — The High Commissioner for the U.S. Trust Territories promulgates a criminal code which creates a penalty of up to 10 years for sodomy, and apparently includes oral sex.

1953 — A California appellate court upholds an oral copulation conviction of a man even though his partner is acquitted.

1955 — The Washington Supreme Court reverses a sodomy conviction that is based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

1970 — The Indiana Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction even though evidence of similar acts with other persons many years before was admitted.

1972 — Ohio passes a new criminal code that makes it the seventh state to legalize sodomy, the first to have gender-neutral sexual assault laws, and the only state to legalize many forms of incest, such as between two brothers, two sisters, or cousins of the same sex.